Tag Archives: matt downey

It’s only just over a week since the Eastleigh by-election was called. But this first Lib Dem / Tory by-election battle of the parliament has attracted a lot of interest. One aspect that hasn’t been noted much in the media is the level of enthusiasm within the Lib Dems to fight this by-election, and fight it to win.

As the party’s weekly briefing itself noted, Mike Thornton’s campaign has broken the party’s by-election records, with “more volunteers, more money raised and more campaign literature delivered in the opening days of the Eastleigh by-election campaign than any other”.

Here a few of the stats:

Well over 1,000 Lib Dem volunteers have visited the by-election HQ since it was officially opened on Saturday morning.

On Thursday alone, 2,200 phone calls were made to prospective voters and activists knocked on 1,700 doors.

More than 650 individual donations have been received through the party’s website and through email appeals in the last six days.

Yesterday’s Observer had a piece on future stars from the youth wings of the three main parties: Liberal Youth, Conservative Future and Young Labour.

The young people from all the parties are an inspired and inspiring bunch, but it’s striking from the magazine article’s photos that Liberal Youth are the huggiest and most diverse. Ranging from “crisp-shirted” to “he of the elongated fringe”, the Liberal Youth contingent are a mixture of ages and backgrounds. Sadly the Liberal Youth photo only made it into the print edition (magazine front page, no less) so the online version features the …